Aesop
by creativetherapy
Summary: Retitled from the working title "Clear and Present Danger" A series of bomb threats has the team on edge, but that may only be the beginning of their worries. This is a continuation of the arc established in Coincidence and Way Out. Whole team, Reid-centric. Please R/R
1. Chapter 1

"Alright, now concentrate." Spencer Reid tried unsuccessfully to stifle a grin as Avery sat, dissolved in laughter. It had been a mounting exchange of literary puns, and he couldn't be sure if any other person in the world would have found it funny. The breeze coming in from the open window chilled the room, and he wiggled his bare feet to warm them against the cool wood floor of his apartment, but Avery's laugh filled him with a welcome warmth.

"Shut up." Avery choked out good-naturedly between fits of giggles.

"No, you've almost got me." Reid insisted, laughing.

"Oh, you liar, I do not." Avery retorted, regaining her composure and wiping a tear from her eye.

"Okay. Focus." Spencer told her again.

Avery stared hard at the chess board in front of her. Despite what she was certain was the good doctor's noble attempt to take it easy on her, she was losing abysmally. The pile of clothes flung onto the floor- one article for every piece captured – was proof of that. Six months of strip chess, and she didn't feel she was getting any better. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to. Her back shivered against a cool gust from the window, clad only in the band and straps of her bra.

"Okay." She forced a serious face, hiding a smile behind a sip from her wine glass next to the board.

"Alright." Spencer explained. "Now, mathematically speaking, all chess games are a simple variation of a finite number of possible moves, meaning -"

"I'm an artist, darling, not a mathematician." Avery reminded him dryly as she slowly picked up a piece and moved it carefully across the board.

"Check." She beamed proudly. "And that would be the shirt, Dr. Reid."

Spencer grinned and began to remove his green sweater, only to be interrupted by the familiar chirping of his cell phone.

"No!" Avery groaned disappointedly.

With frustration, Reid lowered his shirt, brushing his hair back into place as he picked up the phone and read the text.

"I gotta go." He said, his voice filled with equal disappointment. "I'm sorry."

Avery sighed as Spencer gathered his things.

"Be careful." She said, watching him move about the room.

"Always." Spencer smiled as he leane over and kissed her.

"I love you." Avery told him, brushing a curling lock gently away from his face.

"I love you, too." He replied earnestly. "Checkmate."

Avery looked in surprise at the board, where, with one quick, unnoticed move Spencer had finished the game.

"Don't worry. We'll pick up where we left off when I get back." He added cheekily as he closed the door behind himself.


	2. Fables

"Someday." Morgan said to Rossi. "Someday we're actually going to get a night off."

He looked up as Reid entered the round room.

"How about you?" He asked as the young agent entered. "You have any plans tonight?"

"Just teaching Avery chess." Reid panned quickly, picking up one of the folders from the desk and looking at it.

"Thanks for coming in." Hotchner closed the door as he entered, looking about the room at the agents. "We don't have a lot of time, so let's get to work. Half an hour ago, three bombs were detonated between here and D.C. One outside a closed diner, one at a thankfully empty bus stop, and one at the top of a subway station."

"Any threats?" J.J asked.

"We're not certain, but for the past week, these have been delivered to offices across departments." Hotch passed around photographs of letters to the team. Each letter was typed neatly, center justified and in small typeface.

Rossi looked at one of the letters.

"A wild boar stood under a tree and rubbed his tusks against the trunk. A fox passing by asked him why he sharpened his teeth.

"There is no danger," the fox said "from either huntsman or hound"

The boar replied "It would never to do have to sharpen my weapons when I ought to be use using them."

"Sounds like a kid's story." Morgan said.

"It's a fable." Spencer corrected. "A short story usually characterized by animals or objects that speak and solve problems, with the end result of conveying some sort of wisdom or moral."

"Be prepared." Rossi said.

"So this guy sent out warnings a week in advance telling the FBI to be prepared." J.J said. "Who did he send them to?"

"Looks like any address he could find." Spencer said, scanning a short list of addresses. "Including Cruz."

Hotchner nodded.

"So he's targeting the FBI as a whole." Rossi said.

"We're not sure," Hotch said, "but we need to get moving. Counterterrorism and Domestic Terrorism are already investigating. D.C agents are handling the subway and bus stop bombings in D.C, which means we stay close to home and check out the restaurant."

The glare and flash of emergency vehicle lights and buzz of curiosity, excitement and panic pulsed through what would ordinarily have been a quiet street at such a late hour. Trucks and police tape kept a growing crowd at a distance, while news vans and reporters did their best to get a shot of Cathy's Diner in their shot.

The windows were blown out of the front of the diner, shrapnel scattered well into the street and down the block. Bricks, beams and other bits of the diner's structure were ripped from their places, bent, warped and burned and tossed pell-mell over the scene.

"The center of the blast seems to have come from outside." Arson investigator Henry Norfolk reported to Hotchner. "Looks like there was a bench here. My guess is the bomb was left either on or near it. I've got my guys sifting through debris, now, trying to see if we can piece it together. Doesn't look like it was very big, though."

"This guy didn't want to hurt anybody." Morgan shook his head. "Quiet street, closed restaurant."

"He was looking to get our attention." Rossi finished.

"He got it." J.J said.

Hotchner turned to the team, looking over their heads to the lingering crowd. "J.J, you take a camera. Get as many shots of the crowd as you can. Morgan, you work with the bomb squad, see what you can find. Reid, you, me, and Rossi will comb the scene and see if we can figure out why this was the target."

Reid looked around. By all accounts, there was nothing exceptional about the area. He walked to the edge of the diner where the window, were it still there, would have nested snugly into the brick corner of the building. He turned around, looking toward the epicenter of the explosion, trying to puzzle out the details of what still seemed a bizarre and seemingly random case.

Something caught his attention from the corner of his eye, and he turned his head. An old newspaper dispenser stood near the corner of the building, battered, but otherwise intact. He frowned, taking a step closer and peering through the clouded plexiglass window.

"Hey, guys." He called, putting on a pair of latex gloves and digging around in his pocket for change. He slipped a dollar's worth of quarters into the slot and opened the door as Rossi and Hotchner walked over to him.

On top of the pile of papers lay a sealed envelope. Spencer removed it, opening it carefully.

"It's another fable." He said, his brow knit with confusion. "A doe had the misfortune to lose one of her eyes, and could not see anyone approaching her from that side. So, to avoid danger, she fed on a high cliff near the sea, with her good eye looking toward the land. This way, she could see when hunters approached, and could escape. But the hunters found out that she was blind in one eye, and so hired a boat to row under the cliff where she used to feed, and shot her from the sea.

"So if our unsub sees himself as one of the hunters," Rossi mused

"He's saying no matter what we do, we'll never catch him." Hotchner finished. "Let's get this off to the lab for prints, and bring in CSI to see what they can get off the stand."

Reid folded the letter, the words resonating uncomfortably within him.

Hotchner pulled his cell phone from his pocket.

"Garcia, we found a note from our unsub. I need you to get in touch with the teams at the other sites, see if any other notes have been found." He said.

"I'm on it, sir." Penelope confirmed.


End file.
